


poacher's pride

by cakecakecake



Series: wanna do bad things with you [2]
Category: Villainous (Cartoon)
Genre: Body Horror, Deal with a Devil, Demonic Possession, Gen, Headcanon, Human Experimentation, Immortality, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Let Them Be Bad, Lizard/Human Hybrids, Murder Family, Origin Story, POV Second Person, Soul Bond, Supernatural Elements, These Are Not Good People, soul eating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-09
Updated: 2018-10-09
Packaged: 2019-07-28 11:00:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16240268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cakecakecake/pseuds/cakecakecake
Summary: "flug, am i immortal?"





	poacher's pride

**Author's Note:**

> exploring my own demencia origin headcanons while indulging my love for flug

"Will it hurt?" 

Her eyes are soft and honey-brown, wide like teacup saucers. You stiffen as you ready the syringe. You know if this doesn't go according to plan, there'll be no light left in those eyes. It's for half a moment that you almost feel sympathetic. Such a pretty, dainty face -- what a waste it would be if this didn't work. From under the paper bag, you smile, wondering if it'll reach your voice as you lie to her.

"Only for a second." 

She hums, comforted as she leans back in the chair, wrists twisting slightly in their shackles as she relaxes. Eyes shut, breathing even, the girl makes no hem or haw as the needle sinks into her skin. You sigh, caught somewhere between relieved and disappointed -- it's always easier when they're willing, but it's a lot less fun. Either way, you're excited to report to the boss, wondering which projected mutations will surface first when an ear-splitting shriek erupts from her throat, shattering your chemistry set.

Ah. 

_Shit_. 

You tug your rubber gloves on tighter as a smile pulls at the corner of your mouth. 

*

He doesn't turn the chair around.

"And were the results... _favorable_?"

You fidget with your clipboard, heart stuttering as you think of the best way to explain yourself on the spot. "They were -- not ideal, um, q-quite unexpected, actually, but -- it's too soon to really, uh -- I'm gonna have to do a little more of -- "

He cuts him off, already impatient. "Did she _survive_?"

"Y-Yes, yes, she's alive, she's fine," you answer quickly, waving your hands up. "I just -- her DNA is reacting rather unpredictably, I don't know if...I'm not sure..."

Black Hat turns around slowly, folding his hands over the desk, an irritated twitch in his brow. "Is she going to be useful or _not_ , Flug?"

"I -- I can't say for sure yet, I'm gonna need to run a few tests -- "

"This better not be a waste of _time_ , Flug," he threatens you, growling as a familiar invisible force pushes you from the office and sends you crashing down the stairs. 

*

She was not fine. 

With vitals this low and brain activity this slowed, you were almost sure you were going to lose her. (Another one.) 

"No, no, no no no n-n-no _no no_ \-- "

You release her restraints and lift her from the operation slab, yelling for 5.0.5. to pull The Lever. The Restoration Tank hisses open and you scramble to get her inside of it, buckling her into the confinement and pressing a few more buttons to seal it shut again. The over-sized bear whines across the lab forlornly, but you can't let yourself lose hope already -- not when you haven't tried _everything_. Her cells were _just_ starting to react, it can't be halted now -- you won't allow it. Not when you've worked this hard. 

5.0.5. nudges your shoulder and you turn to pat the top of his head, remembering the choice words Black Hat had for him years ago, when he'd just been born -- _failure, useless, abomination_. Your brows knit together. He'll see. You'll make him see. (You scratch the bear behind his ears.)

Your creations will be none of those things. 

* 

She wakes up four days later. 

You ask her if she knows the date or time -- where she is, or even who she is -- and she remembers nothing. (Good.) 

You help her out of the tank and tie her to the bed and she makes no effort to resist you at all. (Also good.) You take a moment to study her features. The mutations you'd been hoping for hadn't occurred, but all this -- (you examine her teeth: fangs, a sharp, slick tongue; her skin feels scaly, talons where her fingernails once grew; a change in her hair color and texture, it's grown so much just in a few days) -- looks to be promising. Your chest swells with pride. With a little training, depending on how far back her intelligence has backpedaled...perhaps she can be useful after all.

*

You take Black Hat in to examine her later that night, watching as he observes her during feeding time. (It seems she's taken a liking to meat.) 

"What should I call her?" you ask, proud of how quickly she's recovering. Your boss is disinterested in minute details, as usual.

"What does it matter?" he grumbles, lip curling up in disgust as the girl makes a mess of herself, animal blood dripping down her cheeks as she chews obnoxiously. She wolfs down the last bite and licks her fingers, wiping excess juices on her dressing gown and sniffing the air as if searching for more. Crawling on all fours, the girl inspects her immediate surroundings, scaling the length of her keeping tank. 

"I'll think of something later, then," you say, knowing he doesn't care, watching her explore. She skitters around with impressive speed, claws leaving occasional marks across the floor. "I'll have to run a few intelligence tests before I can get her to do any field work, but I -- "

An ear-shattering crash nearly jolts you out of your skin as you dive to the floor, cowering as Black Hat groans in frustration. 

"What the HELL -- "

The girl giggles, covered head to toe in soot. Oh, of course she touched the Big Red Button the activates the Hyper-Solar-Flare-Bomb. You share a brief knowing glance with your boss.

"Demencia."

*

Her first kill is a fluke.

You'd left for a quick break to guzzle some coffee and she'd escaped. 

_How_ , you're still trying to puzzle together -- the manner in which she'd maneuvered herself out of the keeping tank is beyond baffling; she shouldn't be able to do anything like that, unless she's far more intelligent than you'd anticipated. Regardless, when ten minutes pass and you can't see her anywhere in the walls of the mansion, cold panic grips you. You start running.

_Shit, shit shit shit fuck fuck god dammit no no no shit shit_ \--

Black Hat's piercing squawks of laughter echo down the corridors, halting your mad dash for the outside. 

When Black Hat laughs, it means one of only two things: 

1\. Something deliciously and horrifically spectacular has managed to strike his fancy, or  
2\. You're doomed.

To your shocked delight, it's the former. 

You push open the gate to the back porch to find your boss holding your mutant by the scruff of her neck, both of them cackling as thunder starts crashing overhead. You scratch at the paper bag, adjusting your goggles to better see the sloppy wreckage of viscera and blood splayed across the deck. Your jaw goes slack. It seems Demencia had gotten hold of one of the nearby superheroes and quickly made a gruesome display of their intestines, wrapping the length of their innards about the courtyard in crude decoration. Her nails and teeth are caked in dirt and blood and who knows what else and Black Hat is looking at her like she's the finest specimen he's laid eyes on in fifty years. You sigh, chest swelling as your anxious heart calms down.

She's proved to be useful all on her own. 

*

He takes her soul on her first (twentieth) birthday. 

You're both flattered and annoyed -- overjoyed that he thinks your creation is so worth the investment, of course, but jealous that he took to her so quickly when you spent _five years_ in his service before he'd even _offered_ to harvest your soul. And you're _still_ trying to convince him to grant the same courtesy to 5.0.5. -- inconceivable! You take a long sip of your beer, standing back as the lab is quickly swallowed into an all-too familiar darkness, waves of shadowy figures and grumbles of unearthly voices worming their whispers into your ears. Black Hat is chortling, greenish slime oozing from his gums as he hovers over the girl. His form is rapidly altering shape, hair sprouting from his back, talons spurting from the tips of his gloves as a crude snout protrudes from between his eyes. 

A thickening fog makes it harder to see. You hear him growl. It's cold.

Demencia is screaming. 

_"Don't be afraid."_

Smells like sulphur. 

(It's over quickly.)

*

It takes her years to figure it out, and Black Hat isn't even the one to tell her. 

You think of the night in the alley behind King's Opera House, 1932 -- several knife wounds, at least seventeen stitches. Not the worst, but your limited technology at the time slowed her recovery down. She didn't leave the tank for weeks.

Then there was the drowning and disembowelment in Rogers' Park, 1947 -- oh, what a _pain_ it was to rearrange her guts, God, that operation took you _days_ \-- that was when Dollar Bill was on the rise and Black Hat was furious that he couldn't sic his favorite pet after him. Despicable. You needed so much of his help. And then the car accident in 1966. Her head had to be sewn back on. You'd wondered if the tire marks across her face would ever fade. (Black Hat had taken care of that one, however begrudgingly.)

She was held hostage and starved in 1984; she got in another car wreck in 1990 -- _Christo_ , can she make it ten years without croaking? Black Hat thinks nothing of the severity of the consequences of her dying every decade or so; he doesn't consider the fact that you're wasting precious resources restoring this mangy body of hers. What's even worse is that she doesn't even get it.

At least not until 1997.

"Flug, am I immortal?" She asks you after getting hit by _another_ fucking car. (Seriously, it's ridiculous, you'd think she'd stop running into traffic after the second time -- ) 

You wring out the rag and dab at her stitches, smoothing your hands over the old scars next to it. You remember which ones she earned in which year, in which accident. They're there and they remain. Regardless of how much the magic has healed her. Unchanging. You remember. She forgets. (She didn't know to begin with.)

"Yes, Demencia, you're immortal," you answer her plainly like you're telling her the score of the game. "Black Hat can't have his subordinates dying on him for good, can he?"

"Wow," she breathes out, eyes blinking wide. "So he _does_ care!"

You roll your eyes. "He doesn't. He just needs us."

She ignores that, as expected. "So no matter what I do, I'm never gonna die?"

"That's right," you tell her, "you can have your body torn to pieces, but as long as Black Hat holds your soul, you'll never die." You secure the bandages around her arm, already exhausted at the thought of spending eternity with her, and yet --

"That's awesome," she giggles, kicking her feet. You grumble this or that about her holding still and she doesn't listen. You don't remember when she stopped listening to you. Maybe it was after she drowned. 

"Flug, are _you_ ever gonna die?' she asks you innocently. She sounds so young all of a sudden. So _annoying_. And yet -- you lift your head to meet her eyes.

"No." You answer, not having thought about this fact in probably thirty years. You look at your hands, hands that have looked the same for as long as you can remember. Maybe that's why you like wearing the gloves. You don't have to notice how they haven't changed. It's all the same. 

Cold, empty, and hard. That's all you are and that's all you have been. The only change is your heart getting harder. You clench your jaw. 

"Flug, you're not human, are you?"

You have to laugh. Demencia winces, furrowing her brows as she stares at you with worry. The glow of her restoration tank casts a sickly green highlight across her delicate face. You'd think she looked very pretty, like something you wanted to protect, but you cannot allow yourself that sentimentality. (You can't allow yourself to live this unending life without her, either.)

"Of course I'm not," you chortle. "Not anymore."

You lean over her, smoothing her wet hair over her forehead. You ready your syringe in your other hand. 

"And neither are you."


End file.
